Remembrance
by Kadira
Summary: Slowly, Raoul realizes just what everything he has lost.


**Disclaimer:** Ai no Kusabi is the property of Yoshihara Rieko and June. No copyright infringement intended.**  
Notes:** Written for a prompt request in my journal, which was: _Ai no Kusabi, Raoul, Hope_

**Remembrance**  
by Kadira

**I. **

It doesn't take Raoul just days or weeks, but months to realize just what he has really lost.

At first, shortly after the explosion, he thought that he knew perfectly well just what it had been, that it wasn't just Tanagura who had lost its Head of Syndicate, but that he had lost a friend.

For all their perfection and that most of them prefer loose gatherings, free of emotional ties, he and Iason had been friends.

Of course, even that hadn't registered right away, but the bang of pain he had felt had intensified, had left an invisible wound that a Blondie shouldn't be able to feel. They were perfect. Beyond the emotions mere humans suffered. They were untouchable. Jupiter had said as much when she had created him. They stood above humans and the non-existence of emotions was just another proof of that.

But despite everything, Raoul had come to realize that Jupiter wasn't perfect and so, in essence, they -- her children -- weren't either.

That day when Dana Bahn exploded, Raoul had felt it. Sharper than any other emotion he had experienced before. It hadn't been the loss of a fellow Elite, not even that of an acquaintance. Instead it had felt as if he had lost a part of himself.

When he had asked Jupiter about it, later, when she had summoned him for the first time, Raoul had tried to explain how he felt, the impossible existence of non-existent pain. Jupiter had smiled then and touched his cheek, almost caressing, as if she would understand him.

Raoul still doesn't think that she does. They are her creations, but there is more to them than just physical and intellectual perfection, more to their famous superiority. He doubts that Jupiter will ever be able to grasp that.

Most of time, he isn't even sure if he fully understands it.

Unfortunately, that realization had only been the beginning.

Once the wound had opened, once it had festered, had swamped him with pain, Raoul, ever so slowly, had realized that it hadn't just been the death of a friend either, but that there were countless more things that accompanied it and which he couldn't stop mourning.

They weren't sudden realizations, but slow ones. Every day – week – month – year – lifetime another one. Each of them as painful as the previous ones.

**II. **

Before Iason had died, he had just taken their time together, their stimulating discussions, or even just their comfortable being together, maybe over a game of chess, for granted.

Since Dana Bahn, he thinks he knows what loneliness is. It's not an emotion he enjoys very much and he would rather do without it. Unfortunately, there is no changing it. It's impossible to shut out, or even to ignore such a strong feeling.

After that he discovered that he even missed their disagreements in some of the most basic rules, like the ownership of a pet-

___What would you say if I told you that I love him, Raoul?_

More often than not Raoul thinks that he had lost him already that day. Not right away, but in the fleeting moment after that, when he hadn't reacted in the way a friend probably should.

Sometimes he goes to the gatherings and to the pet parades, but like most things in their society, it seems bleak without the silent defiance for their conventions Iason had always shown so openly -

quiet, in his actions -

_____Have you heard the rumors about Iason and that disgusting mongrel pet of his? Who does he think he is? He might be the Head of our Syndicate, but--_

loud, in his words -

_______I can't, I _won't_______, let him go, Raoul._

And screaming with his mere presence. There, for everybody to see who cared to look.

**III. **

But despite all those realizations, it is during one of the countless, but rather dull VIP meetings that Raoul apprehends what he has really lost. He can't put it into words right away, because the concept is even more foreign than the pain of losing a strong friendship or the feeling of loneliness, but when he arrives at Dana Bahn that evening and looks at the destroyed building, the blackened ruins, he finally recognizes it for what it is -

Hope.

The realization comes with a certain shock. Raoul is one of the elite after all, so their hope is Jupiter and the society she has created for her children and shouldn't be based on interrelations.

Yet, here it is.

His throat feels dry and he needs a moment before he can focus again, as he lets their time together replay in his mind. But once he realized it, it was only too obvious. It has always been there, even if he hadn't seen it before, because Iason had always been there, a part of Raoul's life and their society, carrying it along with this hope.

And Jupiter's world, the perfect society, seems bleak, sterile, even dead, without this special hope.

**IV. **

Raoul doesn't look up when he hears the car approaching. There is no need for it. Nobody but them comes here. Not at this day during the week. Not during this time, when the twin moons stand highest, illuminating the ruins without the gruesome finality of the harsh daylight.

He breathes in the smell of Katze's cigarettes. At some points after weeks–months-years-forever of those meetings, the aroma has started to have a calming effect on him. Not that Raoul would ever admit it, and when their eyes finally meet, he just allows himself a barely visible nod of acknowledgement of the former Furniture's presence.

Katze does the same, before he comes to a stand beside Raoul and lights himself another cigarette, his eyes fixed on the same view.

Raoul has wondered a few times already just whom Katze mourns - the reluctant pet or his former master. Considering his relationship to either, it is probably for both of them.

Not that Raoul would ever ask him that question, certainly not aloud.

For everything that has happened since Dana Bahn exploded, not much at all has changed. Not in Tanagura, least of all the difference between classes and so their interaction.

Only Raoul's world has come crashing down.

Their first encounter amidst the ruins that could never be fixed again only had been a chance meeting, but then, without Raoul even realizing it, had turned into an unannounced ritual.

Every week the same day at the same time they would meet here. In their united isolation, they would silently stare at the ruins, trying to find only a glimmer of that which Iason had meant to them, of what they had lost that day, maybe even a faint light of the hope Iason had presented.

During these fleeting moments, their different positions were unimportant. Blondie, Furniture, Black Market Dealer or Head of the Syndicate. Here it didn't matter, certainly not more than the reason for their meeting.

Of course, it would change again, as soon as they would take their leave, even more the next morning, when Raoul would try to fill once more a hole that was impossible to fill and Katze returned to his dealings, to be the direct link between the Head of the Syndicate and the Black Market.

But that first matters again then, not here, not now.

**Fin**


End file.
